Above Your Heart, in Your Soul
by FlowerOwl
Summary: All her life, Princess Zelda had been told that, as a princess, she would not be able to marry her soulmate. She was sixteen when she realised that she did not have to make that sacrifice, as the spot above her heart where her Marks should have been was bare. A hundred years later, Zelda realises that they were all wrong.
1. Chapter 1

With all of the hours she had already wasted, burying herself in her books in an attempt to hide from the world around her and the consequences of her own inability to claim the power that had been passed down from mother to daughter for millennia and the harsh reminders from her father that 'your powers are Hyrule's only hope, how can you be so selfish when your subjects are still moments away from death?', Zelda supposed that it really should not have been a surprise to her that the universe had not granted her a soulmate.

The spot just above her heart that should have shown the mark that would one day lead her to her other half was bare, even as the weeks following her sixteenth birthday passed by in a blur of anticipating, Zelda growing increasingly worried as the Mark continued to refuse to show up.

In retrospect, she supposed that was in that moment she realised that maybe she was simply never meant to be loved like that. After all, her mother had died while she was still a mere child, and although Urbosa had been there for her all of her life, with kind words that might almost have been motherly, Zelda had always known—felt the familiar pang of realisation every time Urbosa would call her little bird—that it was Urbosa's way of maintaining some sort of companionship with her mother, the previous Zelda. After all, it had never been a secret to Zelda that her mother's and father's Marks did not match

Perhaps it was a sign. A little reminder from the very same goddess she had never been able to contact that, no matter how many times her father would tell her that she must never allow herself to fail or Urbosa would stroke her hair and assure her that everything would work out in the end, Zelda was destined for failure. It was the explanation Zelda liked the least—if the missing Mark was her own fault, then it would at least not also be a sign that Hyrule was doomed—and the one she tried her best to avoid dwelling on. And yet, the possibility of her inability to harness the power being another piece of evidence that they would all fail began to seem more and more likely to her as each of her attempts to awaken her sealing power yielded no results.

Around her, Zelda could see how she was the only one without a Mark. Urbosa had one, even if the tiny book that decorated her skin had all but disappeared over the years. Daruk had one, a drop of lava he often liked to gesture towards before continuing on to talk about his family. Zelda was not sure what Revali's Mark showed, but she did know that he had one, it was not like Revali ever missed an opportunity to tell them how he expected his other half to have a Mark that would depict a bow and arrow. More than once, Zelda had hid a smile behind her hand while Urbosa told Revali that, with that attitude, he might end up finding his other half only to discover that they had a feather drawn above their heart, at which point Revali would huff as Link nodded towards Urbosa.

Link.

Zelda would have liked to say that she was not petty, to claim that she behaved like a princess was supposed to. But she did not. Instead, she tried to cover up her insecurities, snapping at Link when he would attempt to speak to her, pretending that he was not even present when he finally began to stay silent around her as well. It was not fair that he had it all; the Master Sword at his side, her father's respect, and now also the Mark above his heart.

Link had shown her his mark not that long after physically putting himself between her and blades of the Yiga Clan. There, nestled in between the scars that spoke of his bravery, she saw the tiny, red scale, the combination of the red of the scale and the blue of his tunic the same as that of the Zora Champion. She had not needed to ask to know that they had already found each other.

The Zora Tunic did fit him perfectly, it always had.

"See, right here," Link said, gesturing towards the middle of the symbol, "that was where the first part of it appeared the day after I turned sixteen."

"And how long did it take for the entire Mark to appear?" Zelda asked. The tip of the feather scratched as she pulled it across the paper. Even as she looked down at it, only a few seconds after she had scribbled her observations onto the page she had torn out of her notebook earlier that morning, Zelda already knew that she would not be able to decipher her own handwriting in a few hours. It was messy, uneven, the sharp edges of each letter contrasting with the usual softness and elegance of her handwriting.

Breathing in sharply, Zelda tried to force herself to sit still and not fidget. Right now, she was able to continue to fool at least Link, but she was not sure how much longer she could manage to convince him that her reasons for wanting to investigate the nature of the Marks were entirely due to her hunger for knowledge.

It was then, Link asked the question. She should have expected it, given the subject of their conversation, it was only natural that he would ask at some point, but for some reason it still took her by surprise.

"Princess, may I ask… what does your Mark look like?"

Only the instinctual reaction of clenching her fists kept the paper from falling to the ground as it instead crumbled up into a ball, the sound of paper brushing against paper accompanying the destruction of all of Zelda's notes for the day.

The reaction did not manage to escape Link's attention—of course it didn't—and as he followed the descent of the piece of paper as she let go of it, a thin line appeared between his brows.

"Zelda, is everything all right?"

And there it was. Her name. It was slightly better than her title, but only barely, as it was still the name of every princess before her who had been able to manifest their powers. Had they gotten their Mark? Zelda supposed they had. If the Marks really were a blessing from the goddesses, she could not see how they could not have gotten theirs. It seemed that she was the only one who was both unable to communicate with the goddesses and without a Mark.

She could have lied, claimed that it was a common picture, a piece of fruit or some kind of crop. Link would probably say something about how he was sorry that she would most likely never be able to find her soulmate due to the sheer amount of people who could be the answer to such a Mark and the risk that their connection to her would be just as vague, and that would be the end of the conversation. Or she could inform in in a cold tone that he had overstepped his boundaries and that, Champion or not, he should not ask the princess of Hyrule such a question. It would hurt the fragile friendship that had somehow blossomed between them over those last few weeks, but she was sure it would be able to survive it.

Really, it would have been simple for her to avoid answering the question, but for some reason, Zelda found that she could not stop the tears, the same way she could not stop her nails from pressing into the skin of her palms, a sharp pain shooting up through her arm.

"I—" she began, before she had to take a deep breath just to be able to continue, "I don't have one of those."

"Oh," Link's eyes went wide, and just as Zelda had expected, the look her shot her was full of pity, "is it…?" he pointed towards his own heart, tapping the spot a couple of times before looking back up at her.

Zelda shook her head. "No, it is not because they are dead. It… I have never had a Mark; it is as simple as that."

She could see how Link silently repeated her words, clearly struggling to make sense of them, and she couldn't blame him for that. Until her Mark had failed to appear, Zelda had never heard of someone who did not receive their Mark. Yes, sometimes you would get your Mark a few days after your sixteenth birthday, but even that was considered abnormal. Zelda being almost seventeen and the skin above her heart being as bare as the day she had been born was entirely unheard of. Even those who were not destined for romance would still get a Mark, albeit one that led to their best friend and life partner. For the princess to not have any sign of a Mark… she could not even begin to imagine the consequences.

"Have you talked with anyone about it?" Link asked, making Zelda look up at him in confusion. Had he not understood what she had just told him? There was no Mark. Not only did she not possess the same magic as her ancestors, she was also possibly the only one to ever not receive their Mark.

"What do you mean?"

Link shifted beside her, leaning forwards to pick up the crumpled up piece of paper. "I was just thinking," he began as he handed her the page, "that it sounds like you need to talk with someone about it."

A sharp, humourless laughter escaped her. "This is not exactly something I can tell anyone. Do you have any idea what could happen if this got out and everyone realised that not only is their princess unable to manifest her powers, she also does not have a Mark? They would never allow me to rule, and if they even rejected my father as well, we might just give up already as we would not be able to stand a chance against Ganon."

They sat in silence, Zelda feeling worse and worse as the seconds passed, and Link kept on staring down at the ground in front of him. Why did she always do that? Every time someone worried about her she would without question lash out and let her frustration push her to yell at someone who had only attempted to help her.

And then Link placed a hand on her shoulder, moving in to pull her into an embrace that ended before she even had registered it. The gesture lasted for such a short amount of time that it really should not have given her as much strength as it did.

"I am sorry for that," he said, and Zelda did not need to look at the way he nodded towards the spot her Mark should have inhabited to know what he referred to, "if there is ever anything I can help you with—anything you would like to talk with someone about—don't hesitate to ask."

"Is that not what I used to tell you?" Zelda said, forcing a smile onto her face.

He returned the gesture. "Yes, and now I am saying the same thing to you. I am right here; you can talk with me about anything."

Zelda smiled, momentarily letting go of the strange feeling that would wash over her when she looked down at the blank spot on her skin. In just a few days, she would celebrate her birthday by travelling up to the very top of Mount Lanayru and hope that the Spring of Wisdom would be able to provide her with answers none of the other springs had yet been willing to share with her.

And perhaps the goddess would finally give her the strength she needed. In that moment, Zelda was able to close her eyes and curl up around the hope that wisdom—the virtue of the Triforce the former princesses had so often possessed—would be the answer.

It was not.

Their journey was all for nothing, and they returned to find four Champions who been waiting for them, hoping that this would be it.

Zelda had not been able to say anything at first. What was there even to say? She was sorry that she had failed, desperate, now that their last hope had turned out to not be the correct answer to the eminent threat of Ganon's return, and most of all completely numb, unable to comprehend all that it meant for them. So she had stayed silent until Daruk had asked her, and the tears began to burn in her eyes.

It had been in that moment the earth began to shake beneath them and Revali spotted the cloud in the distance, rising from what quickly became the ruins of Hyrule Castle, and in an instant, Zelda stopped grieving for a soulmate she would never meet to instead grieve for everyone she had not been able to save.

Urbosa reached out, no doubt to help her stay upright as she made her voice soft, too kind and friendly for what had just happened. "Come. We should go. We need to get you someplace safe."

Halfway turning around to look at her, halfway unable to look away from all of the destruction unfolding in front of her, Zelda remembered the picture of the faded book and knew what she had to do. "No!" the word did not possess much strength, and Zelda hoped that they would not notice how her voice trembled as she pushed herself away from Urbosa and the comfort of the hug, "I am not a child anymore! I may not be much use on the battlefield, but there must… there must be something I can do to help!"

Around her, the Champions looked around at each other, none of them willing to meet her gaze.

So instead, Zelda looked at them. At Mipha and the tiny image of a shield Zelda had heard so much about during those weeks after both Link and Mipha had turned sixteen. At Daruk and the drop of lava that was—although not as warm as the real thing—able to warm them all when they had gone up to the Hebra Mountains. At Revali and his conviction that the first thing his soulmate would know about him was that he was an archer. Finally, she looked at Urbosa and hoped that the book had yet to fade completely.

And perhaps Urbosa did notice her glance, or at least she had that kind of look in her eyes when she turned back to face Zelda that was usually only present when she would tell her stories about her mother.

"If that is what you wish to do, little bird," at the mention of the nickname, Urbosa smiled at her, "I will not fool myself into thinking I can do anything to stop you."

The other Champions looked away. Zelda did not have to ask Link to know from the way he drew his brows together, his hand searching for the hilt of the Master Sword, to know that he did not agree with Urbosa's decision. But he stayed silent, and as neither Mipha, Revali, nor Daruk protested, it was decided that, while the rest of them would make their way to the Divine Beasts and attempt to limit the extent of Ganon's destruction, Zelda and Link would go to the castle. It was a plan that rested solely on the hope that maybe that would be enough to make Zelda finally discover her powers.

It failed. Of course it did.

The only way they would have been able to stop Ganon was by using her sealing powers, so, really, failure had always been the only way it could end.

Still, even as Zelda saw the Divine Beasts in the horizon, all of them putting up a fight against the Malice that—noble as it was—was ultimately for nothing as they all succumbed in the end, it all felt unreal as she ran after Link through the forest, his grip around her wrist the only thing that made her able to continue.

Although Mipha had been the first to arrive at her Beast, Vah Ruta had been the last of the beasts to lose the fight, the sound of the elephant screaming in agony piercing the air around them.

Link stumbled, the Master Sword hitting the ground next to him with a soft thud, and for a moment, Zelda assumed that the loud shriek from the elephant had somehow managed to catch him off guard, momentarily causing him to lose focus. But then he reached up to press his hand against his chest, against the point just above his heart, and she understood.

"Link… I—" Zelda tried before stopping. There was nothing she could say. He had just lost his soulmate, and try as she might, Zelda had at least never had to experience the pain of knowing just what she had lost. So rather than attempting to console him with empty words, she crouched down next to him on the ground and threw her arms around him.

He was shaking, she realised, crying silently as they sat there, somewhere in a forest, no doubt already surrounded by Ganon's forces. But the sword lay forgotten on top of the leaves.

"I didn't think—" Link forced out, the sound interrupted by tears, "I always assumed she would be able to make it."

Zelda brushed a strand of hair away from his face. "I know. We all did."

There was no point in lying to him and tell him that perhaps there was still a chance that Mipha had survived. Once a connection between soulmates had been seared, the physical sensation of pain would only be surpassed by the knowledge that they were gone. It was not something that could be mistaken for something else. Despite her spearmanship and ability to manifest her powers at will, Mipha was gone and would not come back to them.

And although Zelda did not have a Mark and the connection to confirm it, deep down, she already knew that the same was the case for Urbosa, Revali, and Daruk. For most of her kingdom for that matter.

She was not sure how long they sat there, but what she did know was that Link was the first of them to move. It seemed wrong that he would have to be the strong one mere moments after his Mark had begun to fade, but that was, nevertheless, what he did, pushing himself off the ground and picking up his sword again.

"Come," he said, extending his hand towards her, and although his voice betrayed him, Link used the heel of his hand to wipe the tears away from his eyes, "we have to get you to Kakariko." he had not managed to completely bury his emotions, and as Zelda reached up to take his hand and let him pull her up, she saw how the faint light that reached them through the roof of leaves above them hit the tears that still trickled down his cheeks.

"But the castle—"

He interrupted her before she had a chance to finish, a harsh tone to his voice she had never heard before. "No. Without the Divine Beasts, we won't stand a chance against Ganon. Our best hope is to get you to safety. That way, you might be able to survive, and once I am sure that someone will be with you to protect you, I can go and face Ganon myself."

Once, Zelda had been almost an entire head taller than him, and perhaps she still was, but as she looked over at him in that moment, taking in the determined look in his eyes, the way he clenched his jaw, turning away from her to instead glare at his sword, and how his eyes were still slightly redder than normal, she could have sworn that he had gotten taller than her during those last few minutes.

But as strong as he was, all of the courage in the world would still not be enough to let him win a fight against Ganon.

"Don't." Zelda reached out to take his hand, forcing him to at least acknowledge her as he swung the sheath back over his shoulder again. "Link, please, don't go. I know that you are strong, stronger than anyone, but this is Ganon. You will not be able to win a fight against him."

He just looked at her like she had not understood anything. "I know that already, there is no need for you to tell me that I will not be able to win a fight against him. But I have to make an attempt—I owe it to her to at least try"

That was the moment she realised that nothing she could say, no amount of begging him not to leave her, would be enough to make him stay.

Zelda spent the next one hundred years in the castle, fighting to give Link a chance to recover in the Shrine of Resurrection.

At first, she had been trapped in there with Calamity Ganon, unable to focus on anything other than how she continually had to use every little bit of strength left in her to keep him from slipping away, but slowly, it had dawned on her that, rather than being trapped with Ganon, she had trapped Ganon inside the castle with her. She was the one in control, and that position and power over the Malice around her was what she fought to maintain as she saw Link wake up once more, making his way through the foreign land around him before turning towards the castle.

Being able to breathe and move freely for the first time in a hundred years felt like she had been reborn.

The air was cold around her as she looked at Link, but something warm had been poured into her chest, warming her heart, and for the first time in her life, Zelda thought that perhaps it had not been an exaggeration when people around her had talked about how they had known the moment they had gotten their Marks. And then she had looked at Link, and although a century had passed since then, she could still remember how he had fallen to the ground all those years ago.

Their situations had been switched. Now, Zelda was the one who would look down towards her Mark from time to time and imagine what the person it connected her to would be like, what their Mark told them about her, when and how she would be able to find them, while Link was left with nothing.

So she tried to hide it.

During the first couple of days after they had defeated Calamity Ganon, Zelda did her best to make sure that Link would not catch her looking at the Mark. She knew that she would not be able to lie about it if he asked her directly, so instead, Zelda tried to avoid the subject of Marks, something that was surprisingly easy considering the amount of work they had yet to do.

Even though Ganon was gone and Hyrule was no longer in danger of being consumed by Malice, they still had so much left to do. Entire towns were gone, and over the years, the roads around them had been allowed to become an overgrown mess of moss, grass, and flowers. And the lack of a proper way to transport goods from one end of the kingdom to the other was only one of the smaller problems. The more pressing issue right after she woke up was the question of just how she would even begin to rebuild Hyrule.

So many years had passed, and apart from perhaps Link, Zelda doubted that there would be a lot of people who could still remember her, who would trust an unknown girl who claimed to be the princess so many years after the entire royal family had died.

"I think we should go to Zora's Domain." Link said as they sat around the campfire on the evening of her second day, poking at the flames with a stick. "Almost everyone I met there remembered me, so they might be our best chance of finding someone who can confirm that you really are the princess from a hundred years ago." he didn't look at her, simply placing an apple on the ground next to the fire.

"Zora's Domain?" Zelda repeated, and tried to gauge just how much Link had yet to fully remember. "Are you sure that is a good idea right now? I know that we will have to talk with King Dorephan at some point, but maybe waiting would be better—"

Link threw an apple, but misjudged the power in his throw, causing the apple to land in the middle of the flames, sending embers flying through the air as the logs moved underneath the fruit. "I do remember her, you know. You don't have to protect me; I already know I lost her."

"I am not trying to protect you per se; all I am saying is that you might not be ready to go back so soon after everything."

"Zelda, stop." Link finally looked away from the fire. "Going to Zora's Domain is the only thing we can do right now, and we can't afford to just sit here and wait for me to magically get better."

"But are you sure that you can do this?"

"No." he reached into the fire, narrowly avoiding touching the flames as he grabbed an apple and placed it next to her on the ground. "But it is what I will have to do."

As soon as they had crossed the bridge connecting Zora's Domain to the surrounding area of cliffs and rivers, Zelda could tell how Link tensed up next to her, instinctually turning to look up at the Divine beast up above them. The elephant was standing up on one of the highest cliffs, the shadow of it hitting most of the domain.

"It feels a bit like she might still be up there, watching over us, doesn't it?" Zelda asked, stepping closer to Link and craning her neck to get a better look at the Beast. The surface of the elephant glinted in the sun, and Zelda could easily imagine how warm it must be up on the cliff. But down where she and Link were standing, the shadow of the Divine Beast provided them with protection from the heath of the sun.

Zelda was not sure exactly how long they stayed there, looking up at Vah Ruta in silence, but it lasted for enough time so that she was halfway surprised when Link slowly nodded and turned towards her again.

"I don't even remember her," he said, shaking his head before continuing, "I know that I loved her, and in some way, I suppose that I still do, but I can barely remember her. When I woke up in the Shrine, my Mark was already gone." sending her a small smile, completely devoid of the humour that usually accompanied it, Link gestured towards the open space in front of them, towards the statue of Mipha that glowed in the dim light of the afternoon. "Apparently, a century is more than enough for a Mark to fade completely, for when I woke up, there was nothing there. It wasn't until I found Sidon and travelled to the domain that I learnt about it and heard that I had already met and lost my soulmate. But… even when I look at the statue and try to piece it all together, I can only recall flashes of my life with her. I know I loved her—in some way, I suppose that I still do—but I just can't remember her."

Link didn't cry and somehow that made it so much worse. When they had first realised that Mipha was gone and would never return, at least Zelda had been able to ignore the hollow feeling in her chest at the thought that they were all gone to instead hug him and watch as he wiped the tears away before forcing himself to continue to fight, but now, when Link just stood there, shaking slightly, Zelda had no idea of what to do.

And that was the moment he turned towards her and glanced towards her hand that had curled up on her chest.

The realisation manifested itself as slightly raised eyebrows.

"You have a Mark."

It was not a question, but Zelda still nodded. "Yes. I have." relief made her stomach feel less heavy, and really, it should not have felt this good to finally be able to tell Link, not when he had lost Mipha and was grieving for a soulmate he could barely recall, but right then, Zelda could not help the sensation of joy that flowed through her now that she no longer had to be careful not to let Link know what had changed for her as well. "It was the first thing I was able to feel after I returned to my physical form."

And somehow, even through all the pain that no doubt lived inside him, Link smiled at her. "I am glad to hear that. You really do deserve that."

Together they continued into the domain and made their way up the stairs that led them to the king.

"May I ask you what your Mark depicts?" Link rode up next to her and pulled at the reins to bring Epona to a halt.

Zelda fiddled slightly with the Sheikah Slate, careful not to drop the artefact as she pretended that she had not already gone through the photo album countless of times to look at the pictures Link had collected during his adventure, often spending hours simply looking at the pictures of the animal.

Finally, she looked back up. "It's a sand seal," she said and watched as a smile spread across Link's face, "a beautiful one at that; it was wearing a bow and smiled up at me when I looked at it."

"So we are going to visit Gerudo Town next?"

"No, not exactly." And that was the exact same dilemma she herself had struggled with over those last couple of months, whether or not she could justify the selfishness of the idea. "We are nowhere near the desert and there is so much we have yet to do, so many towns we still have to visit before I can even begin to allow myself to consider going to the desert."

"But your soulmate—"

"Will simply have to wait. I waited for them for a hundred years, I am sure they will be fine a few months more. Besides," Zelda looked back down as she got to what really scared her, "the chance that I will actually be able to find them is as close to non-existent as it could possibly be."

"What do you mean?"

"Link. Think about it, how many sand seals did you see while you were in the town?" the way the ecstatic look slowly disappeared to make way for sadness was answer enough for her. "Exactly, you saw a lot of them. My soulmate could be anyone; someone who trains sand seals, someone who makes a living by selling them to customers, someone who studies them. The possibilities are endless, and I do not have the time necessary to dedicate months of my life to the task of finding the one person who has a Mark that will lead them to me, not even to mention how their Mark might make it just as difficult for them to figure out who their soulmate is as it is for me."

"You really don't think that the goddess has been kind enough to give you a way to find your soulmate?"

"No," Zelda said with a shrug, "I really don't."

After spending a hundred years inside a castle, fighting an entity with powers she had only been able to unlock after seventeen years of failure, Zelda no longer felt like she had any obligation to follow the Marks, even if the general opinion was—or at least had been back before the Calamity—that two soulmates were destined to find each other, and that it was a sign of disrespect towards the goddess' gift of a Mark not to at least attempt to find the person it led to. That might be the case, Zelda supposed, but after everything, she had had enough. If she was meant to find her soulmate, then Zelda would find them. If not, well, then she would not even bother to accept the fight and waste her time.

However, it did not seem that Link agreed with her, and he sent her a secretive smile while glancing towards the horizon. "Well, even if that is the case, I think that I might already know a way to find your soulmate." when Zelda looked up at him so quickly it was lucky she did not injure herself, he winked at her. "A sand seal with a bow? I think I might know someone who matches that description."

Even though Zelda would have liked to pretend that she was more mature now than she had been back when she would still ask Urbosa to tell her stories about how it had been to see her soulmate, she could not ignore the way her heart beat faster in her chest, so close to her Mark she could almost feel it echo into her soul.

For the first couple of days after Link's cryptic hint, Zelda did her best to ignore the urge to jump onto her horse and gallop straight to the desert, despite how their plan—if the pages upon pages of notes on subject of the current world that had been stored away on the Sheikah Slate over those last months could be called a plan—included both them going to visit Impa in Kakariko Village and then travel all the way to Rito Village to ensure that the cliff above them would be able to support the full weight of Vah Medoh for years to come.

She did her best to forget about it, both the picture above her heart, the sense of longing that would fill her every time she looked at her map and saw the letters form the words 'Gerudo Desert', but most of all, she tried not to think about how Link seemingly already knew the person her Mark would lead her to. If she wanted to, Zelda knew that she could simply ask him, and then she would at least have a name, even if she decided not to pursue the clue that had been drawn directly onto her skin. But that simply did not feel right. If she were to decide to waste her time and begin the search for her soulmate, Zelda wanted to do it the right way.

Of course, her determination could only last for so long, so the second time Link brought up the subject of Zelda's newfound Mark, she gave in and agreed that if anything were to happen to the Divine Beast above Rito Village, Teba would know to find Link and come to them. Besides, as Link had hurried to remind her, Gerudo Town should without a doubt be their main priority. An agreement with the chief would be able to make everything better for all of them, both because of the location of the town, directly between the Yiga Clan Hideout and Central Hyrule, and the options the possibility of a trade agreement would result in.

They set out for Gerudo Town a little over two months after Zelda had regained her physical form, and try as she might, Zelda could not deny that it had more to do with the sand seal that rested just above her heart than it did with the advantages a trade agreement with the chief could provide them with.

Already before they had even entered the desert, riding through Oseira Plains towards Taobab Grassland, Zelda could see how everything had changed since the last time she had been there. Where were the merchants, travelling through the canyon, with their horses loaded with goods?

They had barely spent an hour riding along the grassy plains before Zelda received the answer to her question.

One moment they had been going over the exact details of how they would present the issue, and the next, Link had pointed towards the distance, an alarmed tone in his voice as he yelled for her to get away.

But she did not follow his orders, instead leaning forward to catch a glimpse of what he had seen.

A large creature towered up in front of them, half horse and half man, but without a doubt fully deadly as it swung its weapon—a sword with an almost circular blade—above its head and let out a deep and terrifying roar.

Next to her, Zelda heard Link swear, but before she had gotten a chance to realise that it was the first time he had ever done so while in her presence, he had yelled something at her horse, making it turn around and run in the opposite direction. Zelda heard Link whisper something to himself as her horse carried her away from him, fear and survival instincts causing the animal to gallop over stones that rested on the sand. Zelda could do nothing but lean in over the horse in an attempt to lessen the air resistance and hold onto the reins like her life depended on it, which it, in that moment, probably did.

The first sign of something having gone horribly wrong was when the sound of Link yelling something reached her. For a split second, Zelda tried to figure out what was happening—it was not a scream, Link did not sound like he had been harmed, instead, he sounded frightened—but she did not dare to look behind her to confirm her theories. Then, something warm rushed past her, electricity crackling, and the next moment pure agony flared through the right side of her body and Zelda was thrown to the ground, the sound of her horse's panicked neighs ringing in her ears.

She landed directly on her left shoulder, rolling over a few times before she finally lay still again.

For a moment, Zelda could hardly think. The entire world around her had turned into differing amounts of pain, but as the black dots that danced in front of her eyes began to clear up, she did her best to try to assess the extent of her injuries, trying to remember what Urbosa had told her about treating wounds.

She could not feel her left arm. It was not necessarily a sign that it was broken, but Zelda was still fairly confident that it was indeed the case. The right side of her body… Zelda fought to stay conscious as the pain returned. No matter what had happened, it could not be good.

Even as the pain almost proved to be too much for her, she was still aware of how the ground shook beneath her, no doubt a sign that the Lynel was closing in on her. But even as she realised that, fully knowing that she was doomed, Zelda could not force herself to feel anything other than an empty sense of acceptance. This was, after all, entirely her own fault. If she had been able to follow the plan she had so carefully created in an attempt to help the kingdom, she and Link would not have been here in that moment, and they would not have met the Lynel.

Link. If he got hurt because of her, Zelda knew that she would never be able to forgive herself. Although Link might have been the one to suggest going to Gerudo Town in the first place, Zelda knew that, even if she was no longer the princess of Hyrule, Link would still ultimately have accepted any decision she would have made. If she had told him that they would go to Hebra, then they would currently have been about to cross the snowy roads.

"Stay back! No—Zelda!"

Metal hit metal, but the sound was closer than ever before.

Once, Zelda had seen for herself how Link was able to fight hordes of Bokoblins while handling several Lynels like they were only minor annoyances, but much like she could now only hear the voices of the spirit realm as whispers, she supposed that perhaps Link's abilities had also dwindled during the century he had spent locked away in a cave on the Great Plateau. It would make sense, even if it did not seem right that Link would not get to keep the strength he had fought so hard to achieve.

Her Mark burnt against her chest as she made one last attempt to sit up, only for her vision to go dark as she fell back. In the background, she was vaguely aware of how Link seemed to have finally gained the upper hand in the fight against the Lynel, how he let out a frustrated yell right before something heavy hit the ground.

Footsteps.

The sound was much fainter than before, and the sight of Link leaning in over her, panic etched into every single one of his features as he looked down at her almost seemed like it was fading in front of her.

"Oh, no, Zelda..." he whispered, halfway about to reach out towards her before he withdrew his hand, almost like he was afraid to break her. A ridiculous idea, really. If Zelda was easy to break, she would not have been able to last a hundred years inside the castle. But it seemed that Link was either too worried to think of that, or maybe he could see something she did not, for he brushed a strand of hair out of his face and began to fumble with the pouch hanging from his belt, and the next second, he extended a cold glass bottle towards her, pushing it against her lips and tilting it slightly to make the red liquid inside run towards her. "Drink," he instructed, and that was the only time Zelda ever found herself grateful for the years she had spent attempting to do everything her father asked of her, for even as she was seconds away from passing out, she did as Link said and drank the elixir.

It tasted absolutely horrible, and the fact that she was simply too exhausted to do anything was the only reason she did not immediately spit it out.

For the first couple of seconds, nothing happened, but right as Zelda was beginning to suspect that there was something wrong, that perhaps the century she had spent without a body had removed any effect the elixir might have had on her, she felt the warmth flow through her body, starting at a point right behind her Mark, but slowly making its way through her entire body, not only making the countless small scratches and scrapes she had received all over her body while rolling over the ground fade away, but also making the bones in her left arm repair themselves, as the burning sensation that had washed over the right side of her body slowly began to give in to the effects of the potion, leaving only a slightly tingly feeling behind as the skin healed itself.

She must have managed to murmur something, as a smile spread across Link's face.

"Just stay awake, Zelda, just a little while longer, then I will go and find someone," as he spoke, Zelda watched Link's face go from joyful to frantic as he came to same conclusion as herself; that they were not exactly somewhere any traveller who knew what they were doing and preferred staying alive to fighting a monster would ever find them.

"Link," she whispered, and although the potion was without a doubt the only reason she was still conscious and able to think clearly enough to form proper sentences, even the small amount of strength necessary to form the words was still almost too much for her, "it is fine. I can take care of myself for a while."

"The fact that you are about five seconds away from passing out would disagree with you."

She smiled. "I have experienced worse things than this before my father had you follow me to make sure I would not be harmed. This is nothing." even as she tried to nod towards nothing in particular, Zelda was aware that that was definitely not the case. Yes, she was able to talk, something she had not been able to do for days after a certain failed experiment, but this hurt more than when she had accidentally mixed up the different elixirs, causing her to poison herself and leading to a hasty search for the antidote.

Once she was able to access her Sheikah Slate again, the first thing Zelda would have to do was to write that down.

"How were you even able to survive until I became your knight?" Link's laugh was strained but it was a welcome change from the worry, so she returned it with a low chuckle.

"I had had plenty of time to practice. And I didn't stop just because you got there to keep an eye on me, I just learnt how to hide my adventures from you."

Link gasped, but didn't look all that surprised. "So that time when you said you had to be left alone to pray…?"

"I did pray, you know, so that wasn't technically a lie." breathe, she just had to keep breathing, even if her throat felt like she had spent the last day doing nothing but eat handful after handful of spicy pepper. "I just didn't feel like you had to know that I then spent a couple of hours in a nearby forest, searching for Silent Princesses."

"You are terrible, you know that, right? I have no idea how you managed to stay alive for so long."

She tried to laugh, but that must have caused her to make some sort of sudden movement, and the next moment, Zelda winched as pain shot up through her arm.

The movement did not go unnoticed by Link, and his hesitant smile disappeared in an instant. "Oh, I am so sorry, just lie still. If I hadn't forgotten about that Lynel—"

"Don't blame yourself."

"I should be the one to tell you that."

"Yeah? Well, I am better now than I have ever been before," the fire that seemed to spread through her body with every passing second as the effects of the numbing components of the elixir subsided did it best to convince her of the opposite, but Zelda continued, "so it is my turn to say that to you now."

It didn't earn her a smile, but at least Link stopped apologising, sitting up straight next to her. Perhaps it was due to the pain, but it took her a moment before Zelda realised that he was glaring towards the cliff that rose up over the horizon several kilometres away.

"Zelda," he said, "I think I can see someone."

Making an attempt to follow his line of sight, Zelda rolled over onto her side, doing her best not to show a pained expression. There, having just turned around the corner that led into the canyon, she could see the faint outline of what looked to be an entire group of people. Merchants, perhaps?

Drawing her eyebrows together, Zelda tried to figure out just what she was seeing. They could not be salesmen, they were approaching far too quickly for them to be riding on horses loaded with their goods, but who were they then?

From his spot next to her, Link reached out, almost like he wanted to pull her in for a hug, and to her surprise, his voice was no longer worried, but rather joyful as he pointed towards the approaching group, almost like he wanted to make sure she noticed them. "Look, they are here! Just hold on for a little while longer, they will know what we should do."

But, maybe exactly because she now no longer had to accept sharing the responsibility for figuring out what their plan should be, Zelda found herself unable to stay awake, and as the figures stopped next to them, she gave up.

Her eyes closed, but Zelda still managed to catch a glimpse of red hair as someone leant in over her.

Urbosa? Was it Urbosa?

Zelda hoped it was, but as the people around her began to talk—panicked voices mixed with someone calmly ordering people around—her Mark felt like it was burning and she drifted off.


	2. Chapter 2

She woke up, and for a moment, Zelda found herself halfway waiting to feel the cold, hard ground underneath her, perhaps with a thin blanket thrown over her to protect her from the stone and the sounds of someone walking around next to her. If she was lucky, she would have been placed in a tent to shield her from the wind, but that was also the best she could expect.

But instead of feeling cold and with her body aching after lying on the ground, the pleasant feeling of something warm and soft did not leave. Even if she could still feel the consequences of the attack and her head felt like she had just fallen from the very top of a tree, it was not as bad as she had expected it to be.

After spending a few seconds convincing herself to open her eyes and get a chance to figure out just where she was, Zelda took in her surroundings.

Instead of being outside, she was lying in a small room, a couple of beds placed throughout the area. Next to her, Zelda could see an empty bed, clean, crisp sheets on top of it, but it did not seem like anyone had been there to disrupt the sheets for quite a while, so she doubted someone had taken her to their house. No, it all seemed much more… official.

"I see that you are awake."

The sound came from somewhere on the other side of her bed, and Zelda hurried to turn to look at the source of it.

There, standing near the entrance of the room with light coming in from behind her, a girl was standing, looking over at her with a hand on her hip.

Zelda's stomach felt like it had stopped existing. The girl looked so much like Urbosa it almost felt like a kick to the stomach as she stood there, her red hair pulled back into a plait. But the more Zelda looked at her, the more she began to see the differences, how the girl was nowhere near as tall as Urbosa had been and looked like she was much younger than her, didn't look at Zelda with the same teasing smile she would have expected from Urbosa.

This girl was not Urbosa, no matter how much Zelda's mind had tried to fool her into thinking she was.

However, the girl did not seem to notice Zelda's disappointment, or maybe she just decided not to comment on it, for she continued into the room, stopping next to her bed. "You gave us all quite a scare out there, you know. Link was so sure that you had been seriously hurt. You should have seen him, he sat in here with you for hours until I told him to go and get some rest." she stopped to fiddle with something next to the bed, but Zelda could not turn around enough to see what was going on.

She liked to consider herself good at piecing things together, able to use the smallest bits of information to figure out what was going on, but despite all of that, she could not help but send the girl a confused look. "What? I am sorry, but I am not sure who you are."

"Link, didn't tell you about me?" the girl chuckled to herself as Zelda tried to figure out just how she had come to know Link. "I will have to ask him about that. But to get back to your question, I am Makeela Riju, Chief of the Gerudo."

Riju. Even as her mind was still half asleep, the name did spark a memory. Link had mentioned someone named Riju while they had discussed what to do about the Divine Beast, hadn't he? But who was she?

Racking her brain to figure out the right connection, Zelda nodded slowly, trying to give off the impression that she knew more about what was going on around her. "Of course. I am sorry for the lack of respect. If I could, I would not greet you while lying here."

But Riju brushed her worries aside with a wave of her hand. "Don't be. Link snuck into the town to offer his help and went to take back the Thunder Helm and Vah Naboris, and nobody is blaming him for that, so I won't hold this against you. Besides, I saw you out in the Taobab Grassland. That was quite the fight, wasn't it?"

"I don't know, I didn't see most of it." Zelda frowned as she tried to recall the moment right before she had passed out. "Speaking of which, I don't think I saw you either. How did you even happen to find us in time?"

Riju hesitated for a moment. It was such a short amount of time that had it not been for how focused Zelda had been, trying to piece what had just happened together, she would most likely have missed how Riju glanced away from her, her hand curling up against her chest before she answered. "I don't know. I just knew that there was someone out there and that they needed help, so I convinced Buliara that I knew what I was talking about, and she agreed to accompany me out there. And I am glad I did, because you didn't look like you were feeling good when we arrived, you barely possessed the strength to mumble something at me before passing out."

"Oh, you were the one I saw." although Zelda tried to mask the slight twinge of disappointment in her voice, Riju tilted her head, prompting her to explain. "I… for a moment, I thought that I saw someone I knew."

"Lady Urbosa."

It was stated more as an observation rather than a question, but Zelda still nodded, careful not to make any sudden movement. "Yes. I thought that she was there to…"

"I get it." Riju said, making Zelda look up at her. "When I was younger, I once went into the desert only to get separated from my sand seal. I thought I was going to die, and for a second, I caught a glimpse of her."

Her words repeated in Zelda's mind. There was something there she had missed, something important that was just out of her reach. Her mind was blurry and her thought process slow, but Zelda was stubborn and not about to give up that easily. And then she realised.

"Wait, do you mean that—"

"Yes," Riju cut in, the corners of her mouths pulling up into a sad expression, "I am related to her. My great-great-grandmother was her sister." Zelda wanted to open her mouth to tell her that that was not the question she had meant to ask, but she hesitated, wondering if her question could not wait for a little longer, just enough so that she would not have to be rude, and that was enough for Riju to continue. "I never got the chance to meet her—or her sister for that matter—but I have been told that she was so brave you could not even imagine it." Riju raised her brows. "And you say that you knew her?"

"I do. Or, well, it was a long time ago, over a hundred years by now, but when I grew up, Urbosa would always be there for me. She—in a way, I suppose she was like a mother to me."

"What about your own mother?"

"She died when I was quite young."

"Oh." Riju's eyes widened, and she reached out almost enough to take her hand, but stopped at the last moment to instead look down at the floor. "I am sorry."

"Don't be, it's a long time ago now." there was nothing funny about the memory, but a laugh still followed her words as Zelda added. "In fact, more than a century has passed since then."

"So it's true, then. You really are the princess who willingly trapped herself inside Hyrule Castle for a hundred years to fight Ganon?"

It seemed so much more heroic when Riju stated it like that, brave and selfless. Zelda wished that that had really been how she had felt during those hours between Link collapsing and her being swallowed by the Malice that rested inside the castle. In reality, the only things that had kept Zelda from simply giving up and curling up on the ground to cry until the world would end around her had been the sound of the Divine Beasts struggling against the Malice and the sound of Link hitting the ground that had haunted her long after she had set out on her own to make one last desperate attempt at stopping the Calamity.

"I suppose that would be me," Zelda finally admitted.

Riju's eyes practically shone as she jumped up and down next to her. "I can't believe it, the stories were actually real!" Zelda knitted her brows, something Riju must have noticed, for she stopped moving. "Some of the elders claimed that the Champions had been accompanied by a princess and her chosen night, but it was mostly regarded as nothing but a fairy tale, as the idea that anyone might have been able to survive inside the castle for so long seemed laughable. To be honest, even when Link arrived, I had my doubts about you, but now you are really here! Do you remember anything?"

"From a hundred years ago?"

Riju nodded. "Yes."

"A bit. I know that time has passed since then, and a few of my memories have faded already, but I do remember most of it."

"Would you mind telling me about her once you are feeling better again?"

Neither of them needed to clarify exactly who Riju was referring to. Looking up at the other girl, Zelda could see the same kind of joy reflected in her eyes that had made Zelda spend so many hours begging Urbosa to tell her just one last story about her mother, so how could she do anything other than sending her a smile and a yes?

It seemed to be the exact reaction Riju had hoped for, for the next thing Zelda knew, Riju had flung herself forward, pulling her into a tight embrace.

"Thank you!" Riju laughed and then, seemingly realising that Zelda was still lying in her bed after having gotten attacked by a Lynel, she quickly backed away from her again, blushing slightly. "Er, I… thank you so much."

While Riju went back to fiddling with something next to Zelda's head, doing her best not to meet Zelda's gaze as Zelda tried to catch a glimpse of what she was doing, the Mark on her chest seemed to be burning. Though the feeling of it was nowhere near unpleasant, rather making it feel like she was sitting in front of a campfire, the suddenness of the change in her Mark was enough to catch Zelda's attention. She looked away from Riju to instead try to figure out what had happened to the tiny sand seal.

Even though she had spent so much of her childhood waiting for her Mark to appear and then another year desperately hoping that it was simply a little bit late, in that moment, Zelda could not recall anything she had ever learnt about the Marks. Another side-effect of her century of constant struggle against the monster, she supposed.

"Zelda?" Riju had turned back towards her, holding a mug in her right hand. It wasn't until she pushed it closer to her, motioning for her to take it that Zelda realised it was for her. "Here, this will make you feel better."

Zelda brought the cup closer to her nose, sending one look at its green content before she dared to breathe in through her nose. It had a strong smell of something dusty, and right then, Zelda knew that she had seen something like it before.

"What is this?"

"Molduga guts."

And that was when the pieces connected. The guts from a Molduga. Zelda could only remember haven seen them once before; during the last week before her mother died. Urbosa had been the one to suggest hunting down a Molduga as some sort of last hope for a cure that could save Zelda's mother.

In that moment, Zelda was no longer the princess of a kingdom that had disappeared. Instead, she was a little girl, hidden behind the curtains as she listened to her mother attempt to dissuade Urbosa from risking her life to maintain some kind of foolish hope that there was a cure for her. Standing behind the curtain, Zelda had cried into the heavy fabric, careful not to make a sound and reveal that she had snuck into the room to listen to their conversation, a conversation she now wished she had not overheard. At least that way, she could have told herself that her mother was still fighting

She forced herself not to cry, not to reveal that she already knew what she would say, as Riju continued. "Of course, you were not exactly in a state where you could eat something as tough as the guts from a Molduga, so it was cut up and softened with water until it reached a consistency more like soup."

Zelda eyed the cup and tried not to think of how pale her mother had been during those last moments, a layer of sweat covering her forehead as her eyes fluttered open even though she did not see Zelda.

"Do I have to?"

"Well, given how you managed to survive inside Hyrule castle for over a century, I would prefer for you not to die less than a day after you arrived here." Riju joked, reaching out to pat her hand. When Zelda did not return the gesture, but rather attempted to look down at the cup without shaking so much the contents would spill, the smile quickly faltered again. "Why? Is there anything wrong?"

"Yes, or well, no, it's not really about the medicine, but… my mother, the last thing I can remember from when she was alive was how they suggested trying to heal her with Molduga guts. It didn't work."

A moment passed as the two of them sat in near total silence, before Riju spoke up. "Oh." Seeing how the green liquid was starting to splash up, getting dangerously close to staining the blankets as Zelda failed to get her shaking hands under control again, she took the cup from her and placed it back onto the little table next to her.

Zelda only nodded at her. "Yeah."

Then, Riju blurted out. "My mother died as well. When I was eight, she went into the desert, searching for a Molduga since there had been an outbreak of something that no one could identify and with no cure that we knew of, and, well, her sand seal returned without her."

Even as Riju finished her story, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she looked between the cup and Zelda, there was nothing Zelda could say. She knew how it felt, all of the empty words and adults who tried to shield her from the truth by telling her that her mother was with the goddess now and would watch over Zelda, an idea that was no doubt meant to cheer her up, but only made her feel even worse as she could now also imagine how her mother was with the goddess, witnessing her failures. So, rather than wasting Riju's time by making her listen to her when everything Zelda could have told her would only have served to make Zelda feel better, she stayed silent.

"I inherited her sand seal after her," Riju continued, still staring at a point on the wall, and it seemed that she was talking more to herself than to Zelda, "I think that was why Buliara did her best to prevent me from investigating Vah Naboris on my own—she was scared that the same thing would happen to me." with what was no doubt an enormous amount of mental strength, Riju looked back down at her, and though her eyes were still shiny, she forced out a small laugh. "Really, it was a good thing that Link showed up when he did since it proved to her that I was right and that we had to do something. You should have seen him when we tried to get close to the Beast—he struggled so much with making his sand seal go the right way."

"You said," Zelda began before she was interrupted by a coughing fit, "you said that you have a sand seal, didn't you? I take it that you are good at surfing over the sand?"

Riju visibly got more relaxed, standing up straighter as she stopped fiddling with her plait. "You could say so. Why?"

Zelda thought of the tiny sand seal on her chest and the warmth that radiated from it. She could tell Riju, she knew she could. But something about being honest and explaining just why they had decided to go to the desert didn't seem right. Perhaps it was because Zelda could still picture the way her mother had grabbed her hand, asking her to promise that she would be strong, and could not help but wonder how it must have felt to be lost in the desert, knowing full well that even if you had the ability to change the past, you would still have done the exact same thing as your people depended on you to save them, but she could not force herself to admit the truth.

"I saw a few pictures on the Sheikah Slate—Link showed me," Zelda lied, "and I wanted to learn more about them."

"Ah, if Link showed you a picture, then it was most likely Patricia you saw. If you want to, I could take you out to see her once are able to stand on your own again," Riju offered.

It was a tempting offer, Zelda had to admit that. Even if her interest in sand seals, or at least the reasons for that interest, was mostly a lie, her heartrate did speed up slightly at the thought of accepting the idea. But even if her reasons for coming to Gerudo Town were selfish, she would at least try to think of everything she had yet to do.

"I am sorry, but I actually came here to discuss the possibility of some kind of agreement between our kingdoms. So I am not sure if we would have the time for that."

"Oh, yes, an agreement." as Zelda's brows rose in confusion, Riju winked at her. "Link told me when we found you. He was quite worried about you, constantly repeating how he should have known better than to go through the Taobab Grassland."

"Do you know if he still does that? If he blames himself, then I have to go and talk with him." she tried to force herself to move up into a sitting position, but Riju pushed her back.

"No, you have to get better. As for the agreement, I am sure we will get a chance to talk about it once you are not one wrong movement away from passing out." to Zelda's horror, Riju moved to pick up the cup yet again and handed it to her with an apologising shrug. "I am sorry, but you have to drink this. It will make you feel better, and I promise that you will be fine. The Molduga guts have been mixed with a couple of flowers, so it will make you sleep to give the guts a chance to help you."

"But aren't Molduga guts incredibly rare?" Zelda tried, making one last attempt to avoiding having to drink it. "Surely, there must be someone who needs this more than I."

"Perhaps, but there will always be someone out there who has it worse than you, and as much as we might wish we could, it is not always possible to help everyone. But, if you drink this, I have a feeling that we can work together to save so many more people than even an entire Molduga could have provided medicine for."

Breathing in, Zelda put the cup to her mouth and tipped it. If Riju could journey into the desert even after her mother had died by doing the exact same thing, the least Zelda could do was to accept the priceless medicine.

The taste was vile, but after travelling with Link and experiencing his way to heal wounds that consisted mostly of drinking several bottles of elixir a day, it was nothing Zelda was not used to.

She supposed she should have paid attention to the feeling of the flowers taking effect, making her eyelids fall shut as her body went limp, but all Zelda could think of was the Mark and how it almost seemed to respond to Riju as she leant in to take the cup from Zelda.

"Are you feeling better?" Link asked, slowing down to let her catch up with him as they strolled through the streets.

"Somewhat." Forgetting why she had been so intent on staring straight ahead, Zelda made the mistake of looking over at him. "And don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"You are looking at me like you afraid that I can fall apart any second."

"Well, I did see you get knocked off your horse by an arrow the Lynel had shot at you."

"But it missed me."

"Perhaps, but it the electricity did still affect you and it frightened your horse enough to make it throw you off."

"Yeah, but that is not your fault."

Link went silent at her side, and once, Zelda would have taken it as a sign that he had agreed with her. But now it only made her stop and turn around to face him.

"Link, look at me," she said, waiting for a moment before Link did as she had asked of him. His hair being a greasy mess around his head was only one of the signs that Riju had not been exaggerating when she had told her that he was worried. Link looked at her like he did not truly see her, a haunted look in his eyes. Zelda wondered how long it had been there and if she had looked the same way to Riju. When it was just her and Link, it was almost easy to forget how it was not normal to have been removed from the rest of the world for a century and come back to find a completely different world from the one they saw in their memories. "It's not your fault. You did everything you could possibly have done. No matter what then actually ended up happening that is everything anyone could have expected from you."

"But I could have done more. I should have been able to do more."

She shot him a glance. Despite being a master swordsman and having a reputation of never being unprepared, never scared of anything, Link was fiddling with the weapon at his side, running his hand over the intricate decoration that ran along the hilt of the sword. Perhaps that was what made Zelda realise that there was more to this than just the fact that they had been unfortunate enough to meet a Lynel.

"Is this about Mipha?"

He looked at her, and Zelda could see the silent deliberation, see the moment he decided to be honest.

"Yes." Link nodded. "I met an old friend at the Kara Kara Bazaar a couple of days ago. He…. He told me that they were preparing for something called the Champion Festival, to honour Mipha and the rest of the Champions, and that everyone would be happy to see me participate in the celebrations."

It took a moment before Zelda realised what Link going to the Zora's Domain would also mean. And although it was selfish, she still felt how her stomach dropped as she tried to mask the hurt in her voice. "So you are leaving?" she asked, already hearing how she had not succeeded. After she had found herself standing out in Hyrule Field, the power flowing through her as she had sealed Ganon away, hopefully for good, Zelda had not spent more than a few hours away from Link. Going to the Zora's Domain… the journey to the Lanayru province would last at least a week, maybe five days if everything went well, and then there were the festivities and the journey back again.

"You could come along," Link said, but the doubt was apparent in his voice, and Zelda knew why.

"I don't think they would want to see me there. Not after everything that happened to Mipha."

"They did invite me, so perhaps they do want to give you the chance to come along."

"No, you knew Mipha and your Marks made that clear to everyone. The only thing they will think of when they see me, is how I was the one to ask her to risk everything and pilot Ruta." Zelda forced a smile onto her face, even if it felt like all of the fake cheerfulness was making her nauseous. "Go. They will be happy to see you. Who knows, maybe you will be able to get some closure, you deserve that much after everything."

Link's hand brushed against the spot where his Mark had been a hundred years ago. "I doubt it. But if you are sure you will be okay here on your own for a couple of weeks, then I will go."

"On my own?" Zelda repeated, trying to add a laugh to the end of her words as she shoved him to the side. "Look around, I don't think I have been surrounded by so many people since before the Calamity."

"You know what I mean. But if you are certain, I will go ask Riju if you can stay here until I get back, and then set out for the domain tomorrow."

It did not feel right to be a burden for Riju. Zelda knew that they had already stayed in Gerudo Town for far too long as it had been three days since she and Riju had sat down to negotiate the exact commitments they would make by signing the agreement, and the excuse of having to rest before they would be able to make the journey to Rito Village could only last for so long. To add several weeks to their visit… Zelda was not a princess anymore, and even if she spent every waking hour for the rest of her life dedicating herself to rebuilding Hyrule, she was aware of how she would most likely never get to see the kingdom of her childhood ever again. There was simply too much to do before Zelda would be able to return everything Riju had already done for her, before she would be able to allow herself to rest.

During her childhood, Urbosa had often spent months in Hyrule Castle, and it was obvious to everyone that she was not just there for a diplomatic visit. But Urbosa had not had to rebuild an entire kingdom; she knew that she could leave for months.

She should not spend so much time dreaming of everything she could have done had it not been for the Calamity, but it was still what Zelda did. There was simply too much to do, so many towns they had yet to visit and agreements she would still have to work out that it was highly unlikely she would ever see the end of it. So even if it was counterproductive, Zelda could not keep herself from imagining how it would be if she only had to bear the responsibilities of a princess rather than have to rebuild it all.

But that was the thing, was it not? Zelda had spent so much of her childhood wishing she had the freedom to go wherever she wanted, to explore the world and learn more about all of the fantastic things around her. And now that she had all of that, she wanted nothing more than the security of having a plan and a place she knew she would not have to leave again in a few days.

However, sharing her worries with Link would only make sure that he would stay behind with her, and as much as Zelda wished that he did not have to leave her, Link had already lost enough. It would not be right to keep him from attending the Champion Festival as well.

So she nodded. "Yes, of course. She has actually asked me if I wanted to meet Patricia later today so perhaps I can ask her myself."

"Patricia?" Link lifted a brow, his gaze flicking towards her Mark. "Have you…?"

"No. and I don't plan on doing it."

"Why not?"

"Link, do you honestly think that I would be lucky enough to meet my soulmate so soon after discovering my Mark?"

"The goddess might have watched over you and led you to her. That would explain why Riju knew she had to go to the Taobab Grassland and was able to find us." and there it was, the coincidence that, according to Link, was proof that Zelda had really just happened to find her soulmate simply by getting attacked by a Lynel. It was a comforting thought that perhaps the goddess had made it so that the two of them happened to meet, but that was also all it was: a comforting thought. It was not real, and Zelda knew that.

"I doubt the goddess would have done anything like that," she said with a scoff, "I prayed to her for years, asking for her help in awakening my sealing powers, only for her not to react. Why would she do anything to help me find my soulmate after that?"

"She did help you in the end."

"Yes, after it was already too late. I failed her." Link looked at her, his brows drawn together, and Zelda could already hear the attempt of making her feel better. She didn't want that. Even if she knew that she had been able to defeat Ganon in the end, it did not change the fact that she had to live with the knowledge that they could have saved countless lives if she had only been able to achieve the same feat a hundred years sooner. That was not something Link could take away from her, and, if she was honest, Zelda did not want him to try. "Look," Zelda said, doing her best to change the subject before Link had a chance to object, "she has not mentioned anything about her Mark. Would she not have done that if I was her soulmate, mentioned how her Mark was growing warmer? With the amount of sand seals I have seen since arriving, I think it would be best to assume that there might be someone else who loves sand seals enough for their soulmate to receive a Mark that shows such a creature."

"But did you feel anything? Any change in your Mark when you talked with her."

"No," Zelda lied, trying to forget about the burning feeling above her heart that seemed to follow her whenever she was with Riju, "no, I don't."

"Hmm," Link said, looking at her, "well, in that case, you might just have to continue your search."

"And I will do that. But only if you go to the Zora's Domain."

That was all it took for her to finally convince him.

When Link left the town that evening, waving goodbye as he was pulled through the sand by the same creature that decorated Zelda's Mark, she did her best not to think about how close Riju was standing to her, and how the sand seal was warmer than ever before.


	3. Chapter 3

"Lean back! If you place too much of your weight on the front of the shield, you are going to fall over as soon as the sand seal changes direction!"

Struggling to both hold onto the reins and pay enough attention to the advice Riju would yell at her, Zelda did her best to do as she said, shifting on the shield. Unsurprisingly, as soon as she did so, leaning back as far as she dared, the unpleasant feeling of almost falling off every time they passed even the slightest bump in the sand disappeared.

The sound of Patricia digging through the sand reached her long before Riju surfed up to her, shifting the reins to hold them with one hand while she waved at Zelda. Wondering how Riju could possibly stay on her shield, Zelda nodded in her direction and went back to clutching the reins so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"Zelda," Riju called out, "relax! Trust your seal, it knows what to do—as long as you don't let it pull you too far away from the town, nothing is going to happen!"

Why had she agreed to this? Why had she not just said no, told Riju that although she would love to learn how to use the seals to get through the desert, it would have to wait?

Her sand seal made another sudden turn, almost managing to throw Zelda off the shield. Pulling the reins closer to her and feeling how the rope tightened, pulling her forward, Zelda dug her heels into the shield, willing herself to be heavy enough to stay upright.

This was not how she remembered the seals. Admittedly, Zelda had been quite young when Urbosa had decided to teach her how to surf, but it had been so much easier then, the sand seals slowly swimming through the sand, and Zelda able to even chat with Urbosa as the wind made sure to keep her hair out of her face. Now, however, strands of hair were constantly whipping around her face, obscuring her vision as the sand seal made yet another turn, this time a bit sharper and faster than before.

Zelda stepped forwards and immediately realised her mistake when she was sent flying to the side.

The sand softened her fall, but she still rolled over a couple of times, the rope twisting around her. She pressed her eyes shut as the sand flew around her.

Patricia protested loudly as Riju brought her to a halt, the metal surface of the shield screeching as it continued forwards for a few metres even after the sand seal pulling it had stopped.

"Are you okay?" Riju jumped off her shield and landed in the sand, the jump causing even more dust to fly up

"Yeah, everything that was damaged during that fall was my dignity." Zelda pushed herself up and tried to brush the sand of her face and untie the rope from her belt. She was quite aware of just how ridiculous she no doubt looked, sitting there with sand in her hair and on her clothes.

Riju extended her hand towards her with a smirk. "If it's any consolation, Link was not much better than you at first."

"Really?" Zelda took her hand and let Riju pull her back up.

"Really. I saw him, the first time he tried surfing, he steered his sand seal directly into a cliff." Riju laughed, and Zelda could understand why. The picture of Link doing his best to become as good a swordsman while surfing with a sand seal as he was when riding a horse, only to crash directly into a cliff was not something she would ever have thought to imagine when she had first met him. "His sand seal was not too happy about that. I was surprised Kohm even let him rent a sand seal again after that."

"Well, practice makes perfect, doesn't it? I don't think Link had ever tried sand seal surfing back before… everything."

Zelda was thankful when Riju does not comment on her inability to say the word to instead nod at her. "Yeah, it didn't look like his muscle memory was of any help to him; he tried to treat it like horseback riding. But have you tried surfing before then?"

"Yes, back before everything, I was—well, I was not exactly good, but at least I didn't get thrown off the shield this quickly. Speaking of which, from what I remember, sand seal surfing was never this difficult. Has something changed during the last century?"

A smile appeared on Riju's face as she pointed towards the shield. "I imagine that the shields have gotten a bit lighter, or at least I would assume that they became after the Molduga began to grow in number."

"Because it was important to be able to move quickly?" Zelda guessed. She was surprised she had not considered the possibility before.

"Yes." Riju nodded. "After my mother died, there were a few cases of soldiers who were not able to escape a Molduga that had decided to chase them." a pained expression that Zelda knew all too well crossed Riju's face. "So it was evident that something had to be done given the increased risk of running into a Molduga. And since these shoes," she gestured towards her feet and how the high hells were already sinking into the sand, "are not exactly made for running, it is matter of life and death that the sand seals are able to outrun a Molduga. So, yes, you might be right; I can show you the records once we get home to the town, then you can see for yourself if you want."

"I would like that very much, thank you."

"Oh, it was nothing," Riju assured her with a wave of her hand before gesturing towards the shield that lay abandoned a short distance from where Zelda had been thrown off, "but if you think you have learnt how to stay on the shield now, we can begin to head back."

"Hey, I was actually quite good at this before the shields suddenly had to get lighter and less sturdy!"

But Riju just laughed and pushed Zelda towards her sand seal, the contact making her Mark burn. "Sure you were!"

Later that day, just as the chill of the night air was beginning to roll in over the town, Zelda found Riju sitting outside in the small enclosure that housed her pet sand seal. Despite how the cold air made Zelda pull at her sleeves to make them cover her fingers as well, Riju looked at ease as she sat there on the throne-like chair.

"Riju?" Zelda asked, stopping at the start of the stairs that led down to the chair.

For a moment, Riju glanced around, searching for the source of the sound, and then Zelda saw how wrinkles appeared around her eyes when she spotted her, the corners of her mouth curling up into a smile. "Zelda! Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes, you were right. A couple of years ago, the records showed that the fastest sand seal was several seconds faster to complete the sand seal rally than it had been the previous years, just like the shields produced within Gerudo Town were much lighter than before."

Riju laughed, a soft, melodic sound, as she patted the seat next to her. "That was what I told you. But do you want to join me down here?"

"Uh," sending an apprehensive glance in the direction of Patricia, Zelda shifted her weight from one foot to the other, hesitating to accept the offer, "I am not sure if I should, I don't want to intrude…"

"Nonsense, I invited you. If I didn't want you to be here, you would have known already. Now, if that is all that keeps you at the top of those stairs, don't hesitate to join me; I think Patricia likes you."

Almost as if on cue, the sand seal in question turned towards Zelda and let out a low, guttural sound.

"She agrees," Riju said.

"You understand her?"

"I do. She is no ordinary sand seal; she is actually quite the oracle!" Riju paused to jump to her feet, skipping over to Patricia to pat her head before she continued. "Patricia can predict the future, she has warned me about incoming dangers more times than I can remember."

Giving up on keeping her distance, Zelda slowly began to make her way down the stairs, keeping her gaze on the sand seal in front of her at all times. Even if Riju had assured her that Patricia liked her, Zelda did still not feel entirely confident around the huge animal. When she had been with Urbosa, it had been one thing, but everything seemed to have changed during those last hundred years until even the animals were almost unrecognisable. But Zelda tried to keep her fear in check as she moved down the stairs.

"She can see the future? How?" Zelda asked as she went to stand next to Riju.

"No one really knows," Riju said with a shrug, "but sometimes, Patricia will speak in a language almost like our own or at least close enough so that it is not too difficult to understand, and no matter what she says, it has a habit of becoming reality. Although," Riju chuckled faintly, "she does like throwing in a lot of seal-related puns. It was my mother who found her, halfway across the desert. Suddenly, there was a sand seal in the middle of nowhere. Given the danger of her wandering off and getting eaten by a Molduga, my mother brought her back home and gave her to me. It wasn't until a few months later that Patricia began to tell us about the future." Riju gestured as she talked, pointing back and forth between herself, Patricia, and the tall walls that separated the town from the desert and the monsters that still lived there, creating a vivid depiction of the story. But then, almost like a torch that was thrown into the water to kill the fire, the smile and energy left her as she stared down at the ground. "I know it must sound silly," her voice was barely louder than a whisper, "but, sometimes, when I was younger, I liked to imagine that Patricia was a gift from Urbosa, a way for her to watch over me. She did after all disappear while in the desert. That way, it would mean that my mother might also come back some day to help my descendants."

That was something Zelda could recognise, the need to feel some kind of connection to those who had died and to maintain some sort of hope that despite everything people around her would say and how the idea defied all logic, they were not truly gone.

Zelda moved closer, taking her eyes off Patricia. "Hey, I promise you, it is not silly at all. I did the exact same thing after my other died."

"You did?"

"Yes, of course, that was the only thing that made me able to continue on. I simply imagined that if I succeeded in awakening the sealing powers my father insisted I possessed, then the goddess would see that I had not failed and give me back my mother. Of course, I never did succeed, but at least that way I could fool myself into thinking that whether or not those I loved would live or die was within my control." She had moved, almost without realising it, to reach out to place and arm around Riju's shoulders. For a moment, Zelda a felt her blood turn to ice as she wondered whether or not she had just made yet another mistake, but then Riju nodded and leant in closer to her.

"I felt the same way. I inherited the throne a long time before I was meant to, making me the youngest chief in centuries, only for the Thunder Helm to go missing shortly after. No one openly told me that it was my fault, but…"

"You still felt like everyone around you were whispering behind your back, talking about how much of a failure you were?"

Riju looked up at her, pausing before she bowed her head. "Yes, something like that."

It felt like a million years had passed since Zelda had last seen her father, standing on the bridge that connected her room to her study while he made sure that she knew just what everyone thought of her. Even now, more than a century later, Zelda could still remember the horrible feeling in her stomach as her father had reminded her of just how unlikely it was for the people to be willing to follow a princess without a Mark and how important it was that she could at least use her sealing powers.

"Well, I am sure you proved anyone who might have thought that wrong when you took back Vah Naboris," Zelda tried her best to comfort her, but the only reaction she got from Riju was a smile so tiny it might just have been something Zelda had imagined.

"Yeah, I guess I did."

"How well did you know lady Urbosa?"

Being caught off-guard by the question, Zelda looked up from her breakfast, overly aware of just how she looked, still wearing the ancient clothes that had been able to survive the Calamity and halfway through her plate of crepes. "What?"

"Well, it's just," Riju looked away, "a lot of the records from her time and even some of the older ones were destroyed during the Calamity. I have heard many different stories about her, but without any way of knowing which ones where true, and although a few of them were obviously either true or false, you and Link are the only ones I know who actually knew her."

"What has Link told you about her?" Zelda asked, trying to figure out what exactly she could tell that Riju had not already been told.

"Nothing. When Link arrived, the threat of Naboris covering the entire town under a mountain of sand was eminent, so it seemed selfish for me to begin to ask him about her. But," Riju shot her an unsure smile, "now, you are here, and it would appear that you knew her quite well."

"Yes, I know her—well, knew her."

The thought of having to refer to Urbosa—to all of the Champions, everyone she had once known, really—in the past tense seemed weird to her. Although she had experienced every second of the century she had spent in the castle, fighting Ganon at every turn, it was as if her brain had not truly caught up, halfway expecting to see Urbosa every time she turned around the corner, ready to greet her with a hug and another anecdote about her mother. Somehow, the fact that Link's spot no longer bore any sign of his Mark and that Mipha's name alone was enough to render him as quiet as he had been during the first few months always seemed to take her by surprise even after she had spent months attempting to get used to the new world.

But she tried not to let any signs of her discomfort at the thought of referring to Urbosa as someone of the past show. This was for Riju, and if she wanted to know more about Urbosa, well, then that was a request Zelda could understand.

"She was one of the kindest persons I ever met." that seemed like a good way to begin, the absolute truth, but still leaving room for all of the stories Zelda could still remember. It had been the same way when Urbosa had told her about her mother, details coming last, and even if Zelda's and Riju's situations were not exactly the same—after all, Zelda had known her mother, had seen her alive, while Urbosa seemed to be more of a legend now, as unbelievable as it seemed to think of her as no longer being there—and from the way Riju leant back in her chair, lifting her chin as she closed her eyes, Zelda knew she had been correct. "I did not really get know her until the first time she visited after my mother had died. She had pulled me aside at the funeral, attempting to cheer me up, but it didn't work all that well. All I knew about her at that point was that she and my mother had been very close," Zelda paused, picturing how her mother had held onto Urbosa's hand like her life depended on it, and continued, "she was incredibly brave. It took me a while to figure it out, but she must have been the one to go into the desert to find a Molduga, all in an attempt to try one last cure for my mother."

"Molduga guts?" Riju finished for her. Zelda nodded.

"Yes. I overheard them talk about it, but I never told Urbosa that I knew that the medicine had not appeared out of nowhere, that it was incredibly hard to come by. Still… I think that she knew that I had been there."

"And that was why you hesitated to accept the elixir back when you first arrived here? Both the one who had suggested it as a cure and the one who had been in need of such a thing died?"

"Among other things," Zelda admitted.

Riju went silent, gazing out into the distance. Out towards the horizon, Zelda could see the yellow expanse stretch on, the occasional breeze whirling up the sand before it fell back to the ground, a perfect, unbroken surface. The first time she had ever set foot in the desert, Zelda had almost been afraid to walk around, stubbornly insisting that she would not ruin the beauty of it all, only for her mother to take her hand and show her that the cold wind would make sure to even it all out again.

"I have heard," Riju then said, and to Zelda's surprise, her voice had a hint of something almost unsure to it, "that Urbosa never married. Do you know if that is true?"

"It is. She said that she had already lost her soulmate, and that there was no point in marrying anyone else since that would mean keeping another person from being able to find their soulmate." Zelda tried her best to think about the way Urbosa had sometimes seemed to glare directly at her father when she would visit for the anniversary of the queen's death. Back when there had still been time for that kind of gatherings, Zelda had been too young to think anything of it, other than noting how the relationship between the king of Hyrule and Urbosa seemed strained. Really, until Zelda failed to receive her own Mark, she had never given much thought to how Urbosa had seemingly known her mother better than anyone else.

"Pardon my question," Riju shifted next to her, suddenly running her hands through the end of her plait, before finishing the sentence, the rest of the words coming out in one big jumble of sound, "but I have heard rumours, from multiple sources in fact, that lady Urbosa did meet her soulmate, but that she was destined for someone else, that her soulmate was the queen of Hyrule."

A tiny shield sitting on top of her mother's heart, almost like it had been placed there specifically to protect her. When her mother first began to grow weaker, she had been so full of hope, telling Zelda that as long as the Mark was still there, her heart was protected from evil. As long as you made sure to keep your heart safe, she had insisted, nothing bad could happen. But, in the end, the shield had not been enough to save her mother, no matter the intricate design of it had been, the Mark almost seeming to glow or how her mother had introduced her to a dear old friend who held an exact replica of the shield in her hand when she had left the castle with tears in her eyes after introducing herself to Zelda.

A book, the cover of it a brilliant blue. Zelda had recognised it as the collection of fairy tales her mother had read to her from when Zelda had been young and had woken her up to tell her about yet another nightmare of malice and hate rising up from the ground to swallow them all. When she had told Urbosa of the coincidence, she had simply smiled at her, though there was no joy to be found on her face when Urbosa had nodded and told her that sometimes, fairy tales were more important than anything Zelda's tutors could ever teach her.

"They never told me directly, but…" Urbosa had always accompanied her to her mother's grave, Zelda remembered, always with a flower to place on the grave. Zelda had never thought much of it until she realised that no one apart from herself and Urbosa would make sure to bring a flower and a story along to the grave, not even her father, "… I think that it was the case. My mother's Mark resembled a shield, a shield that looked exactly like Urbosa's."

"And Lady Urbosa?"

"A book. A collection of fairy tales my mother would tell me when I couldn't sleep. My mother always believed that your fate had been decided from the start. Urbosa and her actually discussed that very subject quite a lot towards the end." now, after several years had passed since Zelda had been the little girl, hiding behind a curtain to overhear conversations that had never been meant for her to hear, she found that she was finally able to talk about it without it making her eyes feel like they were burning. "Urbosa asked her to fight, told her that there were still a few more things they had yet to try, that she should not give up when the healers were getting closer to a cure every day, but my mother just told her that this was how her life had always been meant to end."

They had found her in the courtyard, having crawled into a bush to cry without anyone finding her. Her dress had been ruined, stained with dirt and torn from when it had caught on the branches around her, but when Zelda looked up at the woman she had seen at her mother's bedside, there was nothing but pity and sadness to be found in her eyes as she warned her that the guards were looking everywhere for her, adding that it would probably be a good idea to change into something else before her father caught sight of her.

"I am sorry."

Looking to the side, Zelda saw how Riju had reached out to place her hand on top of hers. It almost seemed like an electrical current ran through her arm, starting from where their hands made contact and continuing towards her heart.

"Don't be, it was a long time ago. Besides, I had Urbosa. For most of my childhood, she was like a mother to me. It just took a while before I realised just why she had been so close with my mother." her left hand involuntarily went to rest against the spot where her Mark was hidden. "It is just yet another sacrifice you might have to make as a ruler, I suppose."

"My mother did marry her soulmate," Riju said, and Zelda had to fight the irrational feeling of jealousy that washed over her. It was not right, she knew that, she knew that the sadness that would always seem to appear in her own mother's and Urbosa's eyes whenever Zelda would ask them about their Marks had nothing to do with Riju's parents. So she stayed quiet and listened to Riju as she continued, "she met him during a meeting with some of the merchants when they still thought it would be possible to figure out a way to cross the desert without risking meeting any of the monsters out there. The moment he began to talk about the possibility of somehow changing the way the Guardians behaved so that, rather than attack travellers, they would protect them, she knew that he was the one—her Mark resembled a Guardian, you see."

"Where is he now?" Zelda asked, trying to remember if she had met anyone who could fit that description.

"Dead. He died just a few weeks after I was born."

"Oh, I didn't mean to—"

"I know you didn't." Riju said, sending her a sorrowful smile, "it is just how life is sometimes. You parents die, and although it doesn't seem right that they have to leave so soon, they do. The only thing you can do is to attempt to not let the world see just how much you depended on them to help you."

"Yes," Zelda said, bowing her head, "it doesn't seem right that we have to hide it just so that the people around us won't get the chance to doubt our ability to rule."

"No, it does not." and then, something that almost sounded like hopefulness filled Riju's voice. "But even despite all of that, I do still hope that I can find my soulmate someday. It might make us miserable more often than not, but I refuse to believe that we don't get the Marks to help us find some kind of happiness even if it is rarely able to last forever."

Trying not to think about the sand seal that looked so much like Patricia and the way they sat, Riju not having moved her hand away from Zelda's, Zelda nodded. "So do I. But I doubt I will be able to find them."

Riju raised her brows, shooting her a confused look. "Why is that?"

"I spent most of my life not believing that I would ever get a Mark. When Ganon was finally defeated and I could once again return to my own body, it seemed like a dream come true when I looked down to see that a Mark had appeared, and to see that there had never been anything wrong with me, that my soulmate had simply not existed in the past, but it did not take long for me to realise that I would not be able to find them. Even after having spent months out here, there is still so much I don't know about the world as it is now. I would not have any idea where to begin to look for my soulmate, and I don't even know if there is anyone out there with a Mark that will lead them to me since I am technically not from this age." Zelda barely managed to silence herself before she would have added how she looked between her Mark and Patricia, wondering if she could really be lucky enough for there to be a connection. If the girl sitting next to her could truly be her soulmate. She knew that could not be the case, Zelda's luck had already proven not to be enough to allow her to meet Riju purely by chance, but her heart insisted on clinging onto the hope that the warm feeling that blossomed around the Mark had been caused by more than just the empty cups of tea sitting on the table in front of them.

"Perhaps I could help you."

The unexpected offer instantly pulled Zelda back to the present.

"How so?"

"Well, although I might not know everyone in Hyrule, quite a lot of travellers make their way out here. I could call in a couple of favours and see if any of them knew of anyone who would match your Mark." Riju cocked her head. "I would be more than happy to help you find happiness, after everything you have done, you really do deserve to get a chance to find your soulmate." The corners of Riju's mouth curled upwards, but the gesture did not quite reach her eyes.

She was not the only one to feel uncomfortable, and Zelda found herself picking at the hem of her sleeve as she answered. "You shouldn't feel obligated to help me though. I can find them on my own, and if I don't, then it was probably just not meant to be."

"I don't feel obligated to help you, I am offering my help because you are my friend and I want to see you happy."

"Yes, but…" she could not come up with a convincing reason to decline Riju's offer to help. And if she was honest with herself, Zelda did want to accept, to let Riju help her find her soulmate. After everything that had happened, Zelda did not want to be alone. It had been hard enough for her to grow used to the idea when she had not received a Mark, but it was a thousand times more difficult for her to look down and know that _someone_ out there was her soulmate and then willingly deny herself the opportunity to find them.

The fact that saying yes and allowing herself to accept Riju's help would inevitably lead to Riju asking for information about her Mark and the risk that she too would see a connection between Patricia and the Mark, only to react in disgust to the very idea that Zelda's Mark might have pointed towards her flashed in her head, reminding her not to say anything, but Zelda forced herself to ignore it, talking so quickly she did not give herself the chance to change her mouth before it was already too late to take it back. "Okay."

"Okay, you will let me help you, or okay, please stop asking me now?"

"Okay, I would like it very much if you would help me."

Riju beamed at her, and although Zelda tried her best, she could not see even the slightest hint of anything forced in the smile. "Great! Then, I know that this might be a personal question, but would you mind describing your Mark to me?"

Zelda would indeed mind describing her Mark, but she forced the part of her that wanted her to stubbornly cross her arms and tell Riju that she had changed her mind to be quiet.

"It's a picture of an animal."

"What kind of animal?"

Zelda pointed towards the stuffed toy next to them, the one that looked like a blue sand seal. "A sand seal."

"A sand seal," Riju repeated, her voice rising through the sentence, "then, your soulmate might be here in the city; we won't even have to ask the travellers if they have met anyone, your soulmate is probably right here." as she talked, Riju stood up from the couch, walking around in a little circle in front of Zelda, waving her hands around.

Was it something Zelda imagined, a figment of her hopeful mind, or did Riju's right hand briefly fly up to touch her Mark? Zelda hoped that was the case.

"Yes," Zelda said, doing her best to appear nonchalant and like she had not at all spent hours wondering whether or not her Mark being the shape of a sand seal and Riju's love for Patricia could be more than a simple coincidence, "I was wondering…"

"Yes?"

Was it…? Zelda could have sworn there was a hint of something soft, a sense of glee in Riju's voice as she nodded at her, waiting for her to continue. But then her brain caught up with her heart. Riju was her friend. Yes, their friendship seemed to have grown into more than just a political alliance, and the fact that she had allowed Zelda to stay in Gerudo Town was more than Zelda could have hoped for, even if Riju's willingness to let her stay could also just have been meant as a favour for Link to let him go to the Champion Festival at the Zora's Domain without having to worry about Zelda's safety, but Zelda was not ready to risk it all by admitting that she had actually entertained the thought that her Mark might have been pointing towards Riju all this time.

So instead, she glanced out towards the horizon where the sun was beginning to set. "I was wondering… there is a place to rent sand seals here, isn't there? Could my Mark perhaps be a sign that I should go and meet the owners of that shop?"

"Oh." Riju's shoulders lowered. In fact, it was not only her shoulders; her smile, which had been brilliant and wide just a few seconds before, also disappeared as she turned her gaze towards the floor. "Yes, I suppose that could be a possibility as well."

She knew that she had made a wrong move. But even then, Zelda did not know what to do. If… if she just for a moment, considered the option of Riju having thought Zelda would mention her, then her disappointment would have to be a sign that… no.

Zelda shook her head. She had to stop. Although the kingdom of Hyrule might be little more than a ruin, she had still been raised to become a queen once day, she had to be able to get her emotions under control.

But even as Zelda did her best to remember how pride had swelled in her chest when her father had complimented her for showing strength on the day of her mother's funeral, it was not enough. It would never be.

"Riju," she said, slowly, as she tried one last time to avoid the conversation before the blooming warmth in her heart assured her that she could continue, "I was actually thinking… about how— how there might be another person who could have led to me getting a Mark that looks like a sand seal."

In an instant, Riju was looking back up at her. "Yes?" she asked, her voice breathless, almost like she did not dare to interrupt her.

Zelda couldn't quite believe that she was still talking, but despite that, she continued. "You really do love Patricia, so if I would have to make a guess, I would think that your soulmate, well, that your soulmate would most likely have a Mark that is in some way connection to that." she paused, unsure of how exactly she could finish what she was trying to say, when the sparkle in Riju's eyes made her find the words. "So what I suppose I am trying to ask you is… well, do you think that your Mark might in any way be connected to me?"

"Are you interested in something that might have led to your soulmate receiving a Mark that looks like a flower?"

A flower? Try as she might, Zelda could not figure out a reason for why the goddess would have decided that a picture of a flower would be the best way to lead her soulmate in the right direction. And yet… just as Zelda was about to admit that no, she could not come up with a reason to explain that, an idea struck her.

"Does this flower have white petals that slowly turn into a bluer colour as they get close to the middle of the flower?"

"It is you!"

Before Zelda got a chance to properly realise the full extent of the words, Riju had jumped back onto the couch, throwing her arms around Zelda as she laughed. But she had put too much force into the movement, and although Zelda tried her best to stabilise both of them, placing one hand hand behind her and wrapping her other arm around Riju in an attempt to hold onto her as well, it was not enough.

They hit the floor, Zelda narrowly managing to twist around in mid-air and keep them from hitting the edge of the couch. But even as they lay there on the cold stone floor, it was not enough to ruin the feeling of warmth that spread from Zelda's Mark out towards the rest of her body.

Rubbing the back of her head, she grinned up at Riju. "Yeah, I suppose we are."

When Link returned to the town, Zelda was there to greet him, waving at him as he passed through the gate, Link turning around to wave at the guards before he continued to move along the road.

Letting go of Riju's hand, Zelda ran forward. "It's good to see you again!"

He looked tired, and from the look on his face, he had cried recently. Still, he let go of the hilt of his sword to return the hug, although it was more of a fleeting squeeze than a proper embrace.

Zelda supposed she should have expected it. Although she had not been particularly close to Mipha, it was easy for her to imagine how it must have felt for Link to participate in a festival that, no matter how much everyone had been focused on honouring the life of the Zora Champion, ultimately served as yet another reminder of everything he had lost back then. So rather than asking him how it had been while knowing full well just how horrible it must have felt, she pulled him closer.

"It is also great to see you," he said, leaning back to look at her, "how have you been while I was gone?"

"Uh," wondering how exactly she was supposed to tell him everything that had happened during those last few weeks, Zelda shot a glance in Riju's direction, "it… it might require a bit more time for me to tell you about it all."

"A bit more time…" Link parroted, following her line of sight, as a faint crease appeared between his brows. Zelda could pinpoint the exact moment he put it all together from how the worn-out expression faded to make way for a smile. "Have you told her?"

Taking a deep breath, Zelda decided that there was no way she would be able to surprise him with the news, not when he could probably already see the joy in her eyes. "I have."

The embrace felt more real this time, like Link meant it when he looked first at her, then over at Riju, before nodding.

"I am proud of you. Really, I am."

And for the first time in ages, Zelda thought that, yes, she was proud of herself as well.

"Zelda, I have to ask you about something."

At the sound of Riju entering the room, Zelda looked up from her sketches, halfway about to ask if it could wait for her to finish the plan. But the sight of Riju barely looking at her, instead standing still, a hand running through her hair as she kept her glance fixed at the floor told her that, no matter what Riju was about to say, it was more important than whether or not Zelda would be able to use the Guardians to rebuild the ruins scattered throughout Hyrule.

So, putting her notebook down onto the table, Zelda jumped onto her feet, moving over to place her hand on Riju's shoulder. "What is it about?"

"Urbosa. Well, it is about all of the Champions, but she is part of the reason I didn't want to continue with the plans before talking with you."

"What do you mean?"

"After hearing everything you have told about her, and after Link left to celebrate Mipha… it doesn't feel right that the Champions and the role they played in Ganon's defeat have almost been forgotten."

That was something they could both agree on. But as Riju was still unwilling to meet her glance, Zelda knew that there was more to it. What Riju had told her so far was simply not something that would explain why she almost seemed worried about what Zelda's response would be.

"And?" she prompted, moving closer to Riju and doing her best to make her voice light.

It worked, and as Riju continued, she looked up at her, a layer of hope making its way onto her face. "I was looking into the different things I could do to make sure they would not be forgotten, and I found that the best idea for everyone would be for us to all come together to celebrate them—not only or their sacrifice, but also for everything they did while alive—"

"That sounds like a brilliant idea," Zelda said, and there was no need for her to try to sound ecstatic as she added, "if there is anything I can do to help, don't hesitate to—"

But Riju held up her hand. "Actually, I was hoping that perhaps… you and Link would make a speech. I know that it is a lot to ask and that it might be too much, that is why I wanted to ask you—Link would say yes no matter how he felt about the idea, I mean, he did after all agree to go and retrieve the Thunder Helm even though he could barely remember anything," she smiled, but it did not quite reach her eyes, "but I hope that you know it will be fine even if you don't want to, I already have something else we can use in case you don't want to—"

"Hey," Zelda said, moving closer, caressing Riju's cheek, "it means a lot to you, so of course I will do it."

The relief was clear on Riju's face, as she too leant in closer towards her. "Really?"

"Really."

The short amount of space that was still left between them soon disappeared, and as they stood there, Zelda could almost convince herself that the thought of an entire celebration that would in the end still be a reminder that the Champions would not come back did not leave her with a slight twinge of pain in her stomach.

But the way Riju's eyes sparkled as she looked up at her for a moment before they resumed the kiss made Zelda want to push through it despite the pain it would no doubt bring.

They celebrated the Festival of the Champions a year after Ganon was sealed away for good. During the century Link had been asleep in the Shrine of Resurrection and Zelda had been hidden away in the castle, it seemed that the knowledge of the exact date of the Calamity had been lost to the sands of time, but celebrating the day they had made sure that the Campions' sacrifices had not been in vain seemed to be a fitting tribute.

But although Zelda knew that it was a joyous occasion and that the mere fact they were able to celebrate the day meant that the Champions had succeeded in their quest—that they all had—it was still overwhelming. So after just a couple of hours, Zelda had to excuse herself, putting on a smile for a Pearle when she spotted her leaving the room and asked her where she was going and making up some lie about needing to get some fresh air.

She stepped out of the banqueting hall, walking away from the palace and out into the deserted street. Maybe she had not been lying at all; the chilly night air did do wonders to calm her down as she sat down, bringing her knees up to her chest as she craned her head to look up at the stars above her.

That was how Riju found her.

"Zelda?" the voice alerted her to the presence of the chief, and Zelda turned around to see Riju stand at the top of the stairs that led into the palace. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Zelda said, or rather, attempted to. The words did not want to get out, sticking to her tongue. Her eyes were burning with tears as she continued, "I am fine, don't worry about me."

But despite Zelda's assurance that she was fine, Riju began to walk down the stairs, moving over sit down next to her.

Zelda wanted to say something, to tell Riju that there was no need for her to dirty her clothes, but the next moment, Riju had put her arm around her waist and Zelda found herself both unable and unwilling to say anything that would have made her move away from her again.

"You don't look like everything is fine. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Zelda tried to shake her head, but it seemed that the worry in Riju's voice was the thing that made her unable to continue with the pretence. The tears were warm against her cheeks as she began to sob, Riju pulling her closer, stroking Zelda's hair as she cried into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I know I should be happy, but I— I know that she is gone, that they are all gone, but I just keep thinking that she is still here and that she could turn around the corner any second," Zelda tried to get out in between the sobs, fully aware of just how pathetic she must appear to Riju as she sat there, crying after she had just left a festival dedicated to someone who had been among her closest friends.

But if Riju was judging her for her grief, she didn't let it show, simply continuing to hold her close. "I understand that," Riju whispered, "please don't feel like you have to apologise. From what you have told me about Urbosa, about all of them, I should have expected for this to happen."

"No—" Zelda protested weakly. This was not something anyone should have known about, least of all Riju who had done everything she could to ensure that this festival would be a success, only for Zelda to ruin it by leaving the rest of the participants to instead go cry in the street.

Riju pressed a kiss to her forehead, and, somehow, the unexpected gesture coupled with the warmth that sprouted in her chest was enough to make Zelda go silent, allowing Riju to take her hands.

"If you want to go back inside," Riju began, not looking away from her for even a second, "I can promise you that no one will think any less of you for having had to leave for a moment. But, if you can't do that, you shouldn't feel like you have to participate."

"No," Zelda shook her head, bringing her hand up to her face to wipe away the tears, "I want to be there."

"If that is what you want," Riju said, holding her hand out towards her, awaiting her answer.

Erasing the last signs of just why she had had to leave the room, Zelda managed a weak smile and took her hand. Together, they made their way back inside the brightly lit halls of the palace.

There might not be a way for Zelda to go back to everything she had once had, but, although she had spent so many nights lying awake beneath the stars, wishing that she could turn back time and change what had happened, as the night progressed and she heard about the legends of Urbosa and the rest of the Champions—some so absurd that she had to laugh, and some sounding so much like something they really would have done that Zelda had to consider the possibility of her memory betraying her—and Riju pressed a kiss to her lips once Zelda had finished her speech, she found that she did not want to.

After all, the world could only move forward, and this time, Zelda would be sure to move along with it.


End file.
